Rei Ohara

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Tokyo in 1961, Rei Ohara made up his mind to become a photographer after winning the Grand Prize in the third Obunsha High-School Photo Grand Prix while a student at Gunma Maebashi High School. After graduating from the Ibaraki University College of Humanities and a stint in photo production, he embarked on a career as a freelance photojournalist with work appearing in such magazines as LIFE, TIME, Newsweek, PARIS MATCH, and ASIAWEEK. His photographs of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests were selected for LIFE magazine's The Best of LIFE. He has since taken up work as a wildlife photographer known for capturing the natural expressions of animals in photos that take seals, fireflies, and other fauna as their themes.